Page 15 of Savage Secrets (Vigilante Kings)

It jarred without opening—locked, presumably. I tried the second drawer down with the same result. Before I could reach for the third, Slade’s voice, calm but suddenly much more serious, carried across the room.

“That’s where we keep case files. Gotta make sure no one else gets in there, or it’d violate our clients’ confidentiality. Don’t worry, we’re just as careful with your info too.”

Guilt heated my cheeks. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—I wasn’t really thinking.”

That last part was a lie, but I didn’t want him to think of me as a snoop. Somehow that seemed even more important than before I’d ended up chatting with him. I’d kind of liked our rambling conversation, I realized. I hadn’t felt that relaxed simply shooting the breeze with a guy in… ages. Maybe forever. Even when Logan and I had been friendly, there’d always been my crush in the back of my mind, making me nervous. Slade had a way of putting people at ease.

Like now. His smile returned in the blink of an eye, so swiftly it was hard to believe he’d sounded so intense a moment ago.

He got up and handed my phone back to me. As I took it, he slipped his arm around me to touch the small of my back, nudging me toward the door. “It’s no problem. You just never know what suspicious characters we’ll need to protect our inside info from, especially when it comes to pretty girls who give away their numbers for potential booty calls.”

I snorted and elbowed him playfully, but I let him usher me toward the door. It seemed like he’d decided I’d spent enough time in the Vigil’s domain, and I had no excuses left to keep me there. I’d checked out everything I could with him watching over me anyway.

“Keep up those studies,” he said as I stepped out into the library’s main room. “We’ll be in touch as soon as we find out anything about your car.”

I nodded and only offered a small wave as he closed the door in my face, the lock clicking behind him. As I headed out of the building, my thoughts started to whirl in my head.

Slade had seemed perfectly content to chat casually with me until I’d touched that filing cabinet. Then suddenly he hadn’t been able to get me out of the office fast enough, even if he’d still been flirting his ass off the whole time.

It wasn’t as if I could have seen any of the confidential files while the drawers were locked anyway. Just what were the guys hiding in there that had prompted such a strong reaction?

---